1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a garment hanger for shirts such as dress shirts which are packaged in a three-dimensional shape after washing and ironing in laundries.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, when a garment having a collar such as a dress shirt is hung on a hanger in a laundry after washing and ironing, a shape retaining member made of cardboard or the like is attached to the inside of the collar of the dress shirt or the like in order to prevent deformation of the collar portion of the garment.
However, attaching such a shape retaining member made of cardboard to the rear side of a collar of a dress shirt or the like is time-consuming and requires complicated work. Furthermore, when customers of laundries put cleaned clothes on, the shape retaining member is removed and thrown away as mere waste and is not reusable in laundry plants or shops, resulting in waste of resources.
In view of the foregoing, some garment hangers provided with collar crushing protective means have been devised as described in Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3002647, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-93284, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-51049, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. H8-10126, and Unexamined Japanese Utility Model Publication No. H7-18674, for example.
Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3002647 discloses a garment hanger provided with a garment supporting portion and a hook portion connected to an upper center of the garment supporting portion. A deformation preventing tab is continuously formed on right and left ends of an upper portion of a supporting base of the garment supporting portion via a folding line. The deformation preventing tab is bent toward a front side of the garment supporting portion so as to abut on a base portion of a collar of a garment supported by the garment supporting portion.
Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-93284 discloses a hanger having a collar crushing protective means which protrudes forward to a clothing support part and can be deformed toward the clothing support part.
Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-51049 discloses a hanger with collar crush prevention pieces which are bendable at a plurality of hinge portions.
Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. H8-10126 discloses a three-dimensional garment clothing hanger composed of a hanging rod formed in a shape substantially conforming to the line of shoulders of a person and a collar mounting plate attached to the hanging rod. The collar mounting plate is formed in a shape which is approximately the same as the shape of a collar of such clothing as a shirt when a person wears the clothing.
Unexamined Japanese Utility Model Publication No. H7-18674 discloses a hanger having a neck with a guide portion for bending both sides of a shirt or the like provided on both ends of a shoulder portion. A collar retaining member is mounted on the neck of the hanger.
In the hangers disclosed in the above-described Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3002647, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-93284, and Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-51049, the portions for supporting clothing are flat, and the deformation-preventing tab or the collar crush prevention piece is formed so as to extend from these flat portions. Therefore, the deformation-preventing tab or the collar crush prevention piece abuts on the inside of a three-dimensionally curved collar of a shirt only by point contact and does not touch the collar so as to fit the curve of the collar.
Accordingly, when transporting shirts on hangers after cleaning, if a large number of shirts are hung without sufficient space between each garment, there is a problem that the collars are crushed.
In the hangers disclosed in Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. H8-10126 and Unexamined Japanese Utility Model Publication No. H7-18674, the collar mounting plate or the collar retaining member has to be separately manufactured and assembled to complete the whole product, which requires additional time and steps, resulting in cost increase. Moreover, since the collar mounting plate and the collar retaining member are bulky, there is a problem that compact stacking of a plurality of hangers is not possible.
In view of the above problems, some three-dimensional collar shape retaining hangers have been proposed as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Registrations No. 3065276, No. 3085502 and No. 3074362 as well as Japanese Patent No. 3549496, for example. These hangers are capable of fitting a curved surface of a collar in order to retain the shape of the collar.
Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3065276 discloses a hanger for three-dimensional packaging formed of a square mountain-shaped frame provided with a protruding portion widening toward the base thereof and a horizontally-long rectangular-shaped base body portion. A V-shaped collar supporting portion is provided extending from slanted bars on both sides of the protruding portion to the center of a bottom beam of the base body portion. A V-shaped inner side of the V-shaped collar supporting portion is formed so as to rise frontward at a steeper angle against the square mountain-shaped frame approaching the bottom beam side.
Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3085502 discloses a hanger composed of a hanger body having a shoulder supporting portion for supporting a shoulder portion of a dress shirt or the like and a collar supporting portion connected to the center of a top end of the shoulder supporting portion for supporting a collar portion of a dress shirt, a hook portion connected to an upper side of the hanger body, and a pair of collar guides formed to extend from the collar supporting portion of the hanger body around the both sides of the collar supporting portion toward the approximate center of a bottom end of the shoulder supporting portion. Each of the collar guides has a curved portion which conforms to a curved surface inside the collar portion of the shirt.
Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3074362 discloses a hanger composed of a hook portion, a neck portion and a body portion, which is also used as a pattern core plate for folding a garment. The neck portion is formed in a curved and bulged shape like a halved bowl, with a lower end thereof being separated from a side surface of the body portion.
Japanese Patent No. 3549496 discloses a three-dimensional collar shape keeping hanger formed with a collar shape keeping part between a hook part and a hanger main body. The collar shape keeping part has curved parts smoothly curved along each curve from a rear neck part toward sides of a collar on both sides of the collar shape keeping part in the longitudinal direction.
However, in the hangers described in the above-mentioned Japanese Utility Model Registrations No. 3065276, No. 3085502 and No. 3074362, although the front surface of the collar supporting portion (the neck portion) is curved along the curve of the front of a collar of a garment, the linearly-formed outer peripheral portion between the front and rear faces of the collar supporting portion may possibly bend the collar which abuts on the outer peripheral portion.
The collar shape keeping part in Japanese Patent No. 3549496 has curved parts smoothly curved along each curve from a rear neck part toward sides of a collar on both sides of the collar shape keeping part in the longitudinal direction. With this hanger, the shape of a collar is maintained from the rear up to the sides of a collar. However, if dress shirts are stacked and pressed, the front face of the collar might be crushed.
For example, in laundry plants or shops, a large number of garments such as dress shirts are hung on hangers and suspended from pipes after cleaning. When the garments, while being hung on hangers, are moved in the longitudinal direction of the pipes to make room or several hangers are grabbed by hand to remove them from the pipes, the stacked portions of the collars are pressed between the front and rear faces of the collar shape keeping parts, thereby crushing the front faces of the collars.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a three-dimensional collar shape retaining hanger which can prevent a collar of a garment from being crushed when stacking a plurality of hangers with garments hung thereon. Furthermore, the hangers themselves can be stacked in a large number.